Just before I left to Jyväskylä, all this loveliness arrived in the mail. Karen, my super talented embroiderer friend, sent me a piece of her embroidery/patchwork art and some postcards and things she had grabbed me from the New Designers 2010 show. I wish I could visit the show myself some day, it seems like such an amazing event. The stuff we have here isn't quite the same. Karen used to make mainly white pieces, lots of white on white (always stunning!), but now she's working with loads of colours too! A whole new style working beautifully together with the old. I especially love the bit in the detail photo, the combination of stripes and gingham and the french knots and blanket stitches and all that. Please visit Karen's blog Contemporary Embroidery to see more of her work, she really is a great artist and she blogs a lot more often than I do, too.

And I know, I know, I should find the time to write here more often, but especially now that I've begun my university studies, it's hard to find the balance between work and sleep. Matchbox Mondays aren't going anywhere, but at other times my blogging may become even more irregular, sometimes many posts a week, sometimes only on Mondays. Tomorrow there will definitely be a new post AND a shop update (yay! full of awesomeness!).

One more thing: I finally caved in and ordered some Moo MiniCards. Love at first sight when they arrived. Truly. (V. is probably happy to testify I went completely bonkers and arranged the cards on the floor so that I could see them all at once and sat there mesmerized for a good while.) The original idea came from the need to document my matchbox projects in some way since I've sold or given away a majority of the boxes I've made. The MiniCards seemed like an interesting option. I thought about using them as business cards, but I don't know if I have the heart to give away any of these. I think I need to order another batch...

If my math isn't completely off, I'm probably quite close to having made a hundred art matchboxes, if not more. That, my friends, is really strange. I never planned this to grow into such a large scale project, but I've enjoyed creating these little things so much it's impossible to quit.